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I usually lurk about the forum and don't post much but I found this old article in a newspaper and wanted to share it with you all.
Jumbo LoveMammoth love
Animals too, have personal likes and dislikes. DHRITI K. LAHIRI-CHOUDHURY writes on some quirks of elephants he has observed.
TO the cognoscenti, animals are not just bundles of instincts. If you come to know them intimately, each is an individual with personal likes, dislikes and quirks. Conrad Lorenz has written with great understanding of animals and birds as characters. The bond between animals and their keepers or owners has been widely recorded. Kipling has described the bond between a tusker and its alcoholic mahout. No two elephants are alike. Only one has to know them well to realise this.
Take Vijay Singh for example, an ungainly tusker with short thick tusks, passionately attached to little Bala, the young female elephant in the pilkhana. The two were inseparable: one could not separate them without Vijay Singh throwing tantrums. Bala was everybody's pet, so sweet and tame that her mahout often neglected to tie her up at night. It was assumed that she would not stray far from Vijay Singh. But, alas, Bala was a bit flighty by nature. One night a wild tusker came to the camp and Bala, ready for a fling, ran away with her buccaneer suitor. Call it anthropomorphism if you like, but that was what it was: a sudden irresistible passion for a short casual affair, a momentary urge to escape the boredom of the settled life at the pilkhanawith a devoted partner. Vijay Singh, the big male, was chained in the stall nearby and could do very little about it. He screamed, he roared and tried his best to break his chain. Unfortunately for him the chain held. Lucky for Bala, though.
Next day all the pilkhana elephants set out in search of the missing Bala. Even after a week there was no trace of Bala in the vast sub-Himalayan forests around the pilkhana. The search parties were called off. Bala was not merely a sweet thing, she was also a valuable riding animal, fast, with a smooth gliding movement, a gently swaying pair of hips, with no jerky movement. Consternation deepened; then somebody had a bright idea. Set Vijay Singh free in the forest. If anyone could bring Bala back, it would be Vijay Singh. On the third day, a battle-scarred but triumphant Vijay Singh emerged from the forest, preceded by a subdued and demure Bala. All was well once again. Bala seemed to enjoy her return to the staid security of the pilkhana and Vijay Singh's attentions. Only from now on there was no freedom at midnight for Bala.
Talking of male ardour among elephants, the story of Bajra Prasad, a magnificent tusker, was slightly different. Covered with gorgeous caparison of zari and velvet, adorned with heavy ornamental silver anklets, long silver tassels hanging from his perfectly symmetrical pair of thick tusks and carrying the State howdah of gilt and silver at the head of the Vijay Dashami (Dussera) procession, he was the picture of regal dignity. Head held high when on the ceremonial march, he seemed to be fully conscious of his importance in the scheme of things. Here was another case of an inseparable pair. The female elephant Raabi had to be kept next to him at all times, in the pilkhana, in procession, even when engaged in more mundane tasks. Bajra used to be in musth for six months in a year. Everything was perfect but for one little hitch. Bajra just couldn't mate.
Jatra Prasad's, again, was a different case. Jatra Prasad, his recent death still lamented by all, was the prize tusker of the West Bengal Forest Department. In any tight corner, Jatra Pasad was the elephant of last resort. He was in musth about once in three years, and could be handled easily in that state. He never showed much interest in the number of departmental female elephants around and never sired a calf. In his youth a quarter of a century ago, he was out grazing in the forest with Suryakanta, a sub-adult makna, a tuskless male. Then Suryakanta was found in the forest with multiple injuries which could only have been inflicted by another elephant. A high-level departmental enquiry pointed the accusing finger at Jatra. It was held that Jatra had attempted to violate Suryakanta.
Malati, a sedate old female, was a placid soul, unflappable even in a crisis. Usually wild elephants rattle domesticated animals. Trumpeting, squealing, shivering and even bolting are the normal reactions. Not true of Malati, though. She had been known to stand still, idly flapping her ears, when charged simultaneously by two rogue maknas. On another occasion a huge solitary tusker approached her for close inspection. She reacted by stretching her trunk to a succulent titbit high up in a tree, making her riders cling desperately for a few precarious moments to the ropes of her tilted riding pad. Cries of the riders in distress scared the tusker away; Malati remained indifferent to the whole proceeding, including the attention of a possible suitor. Only sweetened coconut laddus, we found, evoked an emotional response in her. We had a small supply in camp, which had gone rancid. We tentatively offered two of them to Malati and instantly accessed her heart. She was not greedy. She would take no for an answer only after two; for we had to ration our meagre supply strictly. It was wonderfully satisfying to watch her munching the laddus for minutes, rumbling with pleasure — a picture of perfect bliss. From then on, every evening when she was brought before us for her daily ration of grain, she would stretch out her trunk for the ritual two laddus; and there was a very happy and satisfied elephant before us.
One realises late in life that the basic and more lasting instincts may go beyond sex.
The author is a member of Asian Elephant Specialist Group, IUCN/SSC, and has edited the Great Indian Elephant Book, (Delhi, 1999).
Topic: Jumbo love